For seven decades, nuclear energy in India was a state monopoly — the domain of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, protected by the Atomic Energy Act of 1962, insulated from private capital, and largely invisible in the public debate about India's energy future. That era is ending. Budget 2025 announced amendments to the Atomic Energy Act to permit private sector participation in nuclear power generation. The Nuclear Energy Mission — one of the nine missions under the Viksit Bharat initiative — targets 100 GW of nuclear power capacity by 2047, up from approximately 8 GW today. And the India-France Special Global Strategic Partnership, elevated in February 2026, placed nuclear energy — including Small Modular Reactors and the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant — at the centre of the bilateral agenda.

India's nuclear energy revival is not merely an energy policy story. It is a strategic pivot — a recognition that India's net-zero 2070 commitment, its energy security imperatives, and its industrial ambitions cannot all be met by solar and wind alone. Nuclear power provides the baseload, the dispatchability, and the energy density that renewable energy, for all its advantages, cannot replicate.

Why Nuclear — And Why Now

India's energy challenge in 2026 has three dimensions that nuclear uniquely addresses.

The first is baseload security. Solar and wind power are intermittent — they generate electricity when the sun shines and the wind blows, not necessarily when demand peaks. India's grid, which must balance the real-time electricity needs of a 1.4 billion-person economy growing at 7% annually, requires a reliable baseload that can operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Coal has historically provided that baseload — but coal is also India's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and the energy transition demands its phase-down. Nuclear is the only low-carbon technology that can replace coal as a baseload source at the scale India needs.

The second is energy security. India imports over 85% of its crude oil and approximately 25% of its natural gas. The Iran war has demonstrated — viscerally and expensively — the vulnerability of an energy import-dependent economy to geopolitical disruption. Nuclear fuel — uranium — is sourced primarily from Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada, under long-term supply agreements with India's Nuclear Suppliers Group partners. Nuclear power is, in this sense, more energy-independent than any fossil fuel alternative.

The third is industrial competitiveness. As global carbon border adjustment mechanisms — particularly the EU's CBAM — begin to price the carbon content of Indian exports, the availability of low-carbon electricity becomes a direct determinant of India's export competitiveness in steel, aluminium, chemicals, and other energy-intensive industries. Nuclear power, producing electricity at approximately ₹3–4 per unit over the lifetime of a plant, provides the kind of stable, low-carbon baseload pricing that energy-intensive manufacturers require.

The Private Sector Opening — What It Means

The amendment to the Atomic Energy Act permitting private sector participation is the most significant structural change in Indian energy policy in a generation. For over 70 years, the Act restricted nuclear power to government entities — a legacy of the Cold War non-proliferation regime and India's particular nuclear history. The amendment creates, for the first time, a legal pathway for Indian private companies — and eventually, through joint ventures, international companies — to own, operate, and invest in nuclear power generation assets in India.

The implications are transformational. India's NPCIL has demonstrated that it can build and operate nuclear plants — but it has been constrained by limited capital availability and the competing demands on the government's balance sheet. Opening the sector to private capital means that India's Adanis, Tatas, and Reliances — companies that have built world-class renewable energy businesses — can bring their capital, their project management capabilities, and their supply chain expertise to nuclear power development.

The modalities of private participation are still being finalised. NPCIL will likely retain ownership and operation of existing plants and the majority stakes in new large-scale reactors for national security and proliferation-sensitive reasons. Private participation is expected to begin with minority equity stakes in new nuclear projects, service and construction contracts, component manufacturing, and eventually operating roles in Small Modular Reactors — which, with their smaller scale and modular construction, are better suited to the public-private partnership model than conventional large reactors.

Small Modular Reactors — India's Strategic Frontier

The most exciting element of India's nuclear revival is not the Jaitapur 9.6 GW conventional reactor project — though that remains strategically important — but the SMR programme. Small Modular Reactors, generating 50–300 MW of electricity from factory-built, modular units, offer several advantages over conventional large reactors: lower upfront capital requirements, shorter construction timelines, greater siting flexibility, and the ability to co-locate with industrial facilities as dedicated power sources.

India is developing its own SMR technology through BARC, with the 100 MW Compact High Temperature Reactor design at an advanced stage. The India-France cooperation on SMRs and Advanced Modular Reactors — formalised during Macron's February 2026 visit — brings French expertise in pressurised water reactor technology and the commercial SMR pipeline being developed by EDF and TechnicAtome to India's programme.

SMRs are particularly relevant to India's industrial decarbonisation agenda. A 100–300 MW SMR co-located with a steel plant, an aluminium smelter, or a green hydrogen production facility provides captive, low-carbon, baseload power that renewables alone — with their intermittency — cannot deliver. As India's energy-intensive industries face increasing carbon border adjustment pressure, the ability to decarbonise their power supply through SMRs becomes a direct competitive necessity.

The Road to 100 GW

India's target of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047 implies adding approximately 4.6 GW of nuclear capacity annually between now and independence's centenary — compared to the less than 1 GW per year India has averaged historically. This is a significant acceleration, and it requires everything to work simultaneously: the private sector amendment to be implemented effectively, the Jaitapur project to be finalised, the SMR programme to be fast-tracked, the international uranium supply agreements to be expanded, and the domestic nuclear manufacturing ecosystem — turbines, pressure vessels, fuel fabrication — to be scaled dramatically.

The India-France nuclear partnership is the most important international enabler of this ambition. EDF's experience in constructing EPR reactors at scale, Framatome's fuel fabrication expertise, and the bilateral cooperation on SMR development give India a technically credible and geopolitically reliable partner for the most strategically sensitive element of its energy programme.

India's nuclear revival is not a niche story. It is a cornerstone of India's energy security, its industrial competitiveness, its climate commitments, and its strategic relationship with its most trusted Western partner. The atom is open. What India does with it will matter enormously.

The Hind covers policy, power, and strategic affairs from India's perspective. Views expressed are analytical and editorial.